Fish Fingers and Custard
by MuslimBarbie
Summary: When Amelia Pond is seven, a mad man in a blue box falls out of sky and lands in her backyard. He babbles funny things and eats fish fingers and custard and it's probably the oddest thing she's ever seen. - Eleven/Amy if you squint.


Word Count: 1282  
Disclaimer: Not mine, never will be.  
Note: I wrote this over a month ago for the dwsanta comm on LiveJournal, but it was anonymous so I couldn't claim it until recently. It makes more sense if you've seen **Good Night**.

* * *

"_**Swear to me. Swear to me on something that matters."**_

* * *

When Amelia Pond is seven-years-old a mad man in a blue box falls out of sky and lands in her backyard. He babbles funny things and eats fish fingers and custard, and it's probably the oddest thing she's ever seen, but he fixes the crack in her wall and promises to take her on adventures in his time machine, so she likes him. She likes him so much, in fact, that she doesn't even mind when he's late to come and get her. He'll come back, she knows he will–he _promised_, after all.

The first things she does morning after she wakes up in her backyard is go to the kitchen and make a bowl of custard and some fish fingers. She's willing to bet anything that the Doctor will be hungry when he comes back. She refuses to move, even when Rory and Mels come over to play or when Aunt Sharon tells her to wash up for supper. She just sits at the table and she waits for him.

She waits and she waits, and kicks anyone who even thinks about touching his fish custard.

.

When the Doctor tells her about the Time War, she has no idea how to even react. (He wasn't kidding when he said it was a bad day.) He tries to brush it off, tries to hide his emotions, but, she can see all of the pain and loneliness; how it kills him to even remember it. She knows she should probably do something–_say_ something–but let's face it: Amy's always been rubbish at dealing with her own feelings, never mind someone else's.

In the end, she does the only thing she can think of: she drags him to the kitchen and makes him his favourite meal. She doesn't mention Gallifrey or the Time Lords. Instead she tells him he's disgusting for eating that and tells him the story about how she had just learnt to fry foods the last time she was in Scotland. They laugh and joke and he's back to himself by the time he's finished his fish fingers and custard.

He tosses the bowls in the sink and Amy thinks that'll be the end of that. But he looks at her with this gentle, thankful gaze and the next thing she knows his arms are wrapped around her. He mumbles a _thank you_ into her shoulder. She smiles, hugs him back, and whispers a _gotcha_ into his ear.

The next day, the Doctor takes her back to Scotland.

He may have lost his Gallifrey, but that doesn't mean he can't give her hers.

.

She's shopping on a honeymoon planet (which is a planet on its honeymoon; apparently it married an asteroid) when she stumbles across a food market. Most of the things look strange and inedible–purple octopi, brown carrots, a pile of some mysterious yellow goo called _saru_. But amidst the alien food, she finds a packet of TARDIS blue custard. She laughs and asks the shopkeeper if he can wrap it up for her.

Later, when she and Rory are in between their honeymoon trips, Amy sneaks into the TARDIS library. She finds the biography section and wedges her present in between Charles Dickens and some alien name she doesn't even try to pronounce. She leaves a note beside it before she grins and runs off to see where the Doctor plans on dropping them off next.

_Just in case ya miss me while I'm gone. – Amy xo_

.

In the middle of the night–while she's still dressed in her nightie and asking him big, important life questions–he takes her to a fairground. And it's not just any old fairground (no, no, of course not. Things are never that simple with her Doctor)–it's a fairground from her childhood. The fairground from her _saddest memory ever_.

They eat candyfloss on the ferris wheel and he holds her hand through all six of the ghost trains they ride. They play games at four different stands–he wins her a stuffed whale; she wins this ridiculous sombrero that he automatically steals. They walk around–him in his suit and her sombrero, and her in her nightie–looking like complete idiots, but she can't even bring herself to care.

At the end of the night, they buy themselves ice cream. She has custard; he somehow manages to find one that tastes like fish fingers. (Amy doesn't ask him where he found it; for once, she thinks she'd rather not know.) She doesn't let him have any of hers, so when he tries to steal a bite, he ends up knocking her ice cream against her chin. He laughs until she dumps the rest of it on his head. The next thing she knows, he's chasing her around the fairground with his fish finger ice cream.

By the time they make it back to the TARDIS, they're both laughing and reek of fish fingers and custard.

And it's funny because, years later, she won't be able to imagine a happier memory.

.

After the Doctor leaves them to their new house, Amy and Rory spend the next few days locked up inside of it. Ya know, just in case the Doctor changes his mind and decide to drop by again. It's ridiculous and stupid, but she doesn't care. Still, after three days, Rory tells her that they can't keep doing this and they need to get out. At the very least, they need to go to the market and buy groceries.

It's almost funny how boringly normal shopping in a British market is. There are no chubby blue people walking about, no green octopi on sale, no awful alien food stench in the air. But they smile, fill their shopping basket, and pretend like they don't miss the rubbish alien markets. This is their life now, after all, and they know they had better get used to it again.

Still, half way through their shopping, Amy tosses a box of frozen fish fingers and a pack of custard into the basket. Rory frowns, but she just shrugs and tells him _just in case_. He stares at her for a moment, before he nods and continues shopping.

It sits in their kitchen untouched.

.

More than a year passes without a word from the Doctor. No calls, no letters, not even any new, insane changes to the history books. But he's alive and he's fine, she knows that he is, so she tries to move on with her life. Rory gets promoted to head nurse at the local hospital and she signs a few more modelling contracts.

And then, on Christmas Eve, he pops up on their doorstep with an armful of presents. She knows this is the bit where she's supposed to laugh and hug him and let him in, but she doesn't. Instead, Amy stands in between him and the door and asks _why now_. After all this time, why come back _now_?

His bright grin transforms into a gentle one and his eyes soften. He digs into his coat pocket and pulls out an index card and a packet of TARDIS blue custard. Part of her wants to laugh, because it's ridiculous how long it took her moron to find the little present, but she doesn't. Instead she crashes into him, not caring that she knocks the gifts out of his arm, and hugs him tight. She mumbles that he's an idiot and she missed him too.

That year, Amy adds fish fingers and custard to their Christmas dinner.

* * *

"_**Fish fingers and custard."**_


End file.
